When we need a good solid candidate for the Rep party we have none that are not flawed. The jornolist will go crazy highlighting all those flaws. Unlike their complete willfull ignoring Obama's flaws when he ran.

But as Bob Grant point out the media bias and absolute corruption will never change. He thinks it too late for the country as we knew it.I do too. I hope we are wrong.

In the early days of the Republic several of the Founding Fathers had some very ripe words for the press and given the examples I have read I can see why.

Certainly at this moment mcuh of the MSM has become a bunch of llttle Pravdas, but OTOH there are many outstanding places for citizens to inform themselves; I would unhumbly note we here on this forum do what we can.

"Certainly at this moment much of the MSM has become a bunch of little Pravdas, but OTOH there are many outstanding places for citizens to inform themselves; I would unhumbly note we here on this forum do what we can."

Yes, but... As much as I like it here and as fun as it is to criticize main media outlets, I strongly regret having to search so far and wide to find different opinions that many highly intelligent people reading the main newspapers and watching the main television stations may never come across. Not only exposure to different opinions but to learn crucial facts that might support an opposing opinion, one often must go through quite a few alternative sources. It isn't that I can't search and find an opposing opinion expressed, it is that others reading and watching only different outlets of the same take can miss so much IMO.

One simple example, Christiane Amanpour of This Week said to Speaker Boehner yesterday that 75% of people think the rich should have their tax rates raised (of course far more than 75% don't know what that rate is). If those people were told the top 1% now pay 38 times their dollar share of the public burden and 50% are paying nothing, and then asked who should pay more, the answer might be closer to the usual 50/50 political split. Show me, anyone, where that fact has ever been reported or highlighted in anything that resembles MSM, except in the utterances of a guest like this being treated as a hostile witness.----

On 'Constitutional Issues' Bigdog mentions a (right wing) scorn for Justice Stevens. An unfortunate part of having to hunt and sort through right wing and left wing sites to learn the different sides of controversial issues is that I am unlikely to come across a balanced look at the total work product of someone like that. Except of course on this forum.

"If those people were told the top 1% now pay 38 times their dollar share of the public burden and 50% are paying nothing"

Occasionally I see this get asked and the response from the liberals is always silence, evade the question, or make a face of annoyance at these points. And the person asking it always lets them off the hook.

So in the 50's we had a tax rate of 90% for the wealthiest and a < 5% unemployment. On the surface it looks like we should bring back the 90%, though it even says on that link they had less they had to actually pay the 90% on. So what was the rate then in terms of the rate now, if that makes any sense?

I feel bad for MSM customers who can follow the news from so many of the same sources everyday and have no idea they only read or heard one side of it. Also I resent having to go to alternative sites to get facts, not just differing opinions.

All the world over, Red is the color of the Left (as in Communist, as in deficit, as in losses) and Blue is the color of the Right. When Reagan won the presidency, the states he won were shown in Blue. When and why, and by whom was it decided to reverse this?

All the world over, Red is the color of the Left (as in Communist, as in deficit, as in losses) and Blue is the color of the Right. When Reagan won the presidency, the states he won were shown in Blue. When and why, and by whom was it decided to reverse this?

In a NPR story this morning on Rep. Barney Frank's (D-MA) retirement announcement, there was a brief retrospective of Rep. Frank's congressional career -- but remarkably, there was no mention made of Frank's involvement in the recent housing-sector meltdown.

None, other than to say he was 'an advocate for affordable housing.' What, one wonders, was the result of such advocacy on the part of Rep. Frank?

It's as if NPR thinks recent history can simply be airbrushed away. But it can't; it's right there for all to see.

From a September 2003 report by the New York Times' Stephen Labaton, on a Bush Administration proposal for a new agency charged with the financial oversight of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Big Government breaks the news that Bill Ayers hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama; well, this was broken by Ben Smith in 2007, but still.

I call it a “snark” because the word “lie” feels a little harsh during this holiday season. However, it’s just a fact that Big Government didn’t position the piece as “breaking news” and as far as I can tell it wasn’t even a featured story. But you have to admire a guy like Weigel who poses as an objective journalist and yet sees no news value whatsoever in new video of a notorious domestic terrorist speaking openly about his relationship with a sitting President of the United States.

But is it really that Weigel saw no news value in it or that he knows that Obama’s re-election could be in even more trouble were he to receive the kind of vetting Journolisters like Weigel did everything in their power to prevent in 2008?

Naturally, Weigel isn’t alone. Here’s Politico’s Ben Smith joining in on the wrist-flicking of the new Ayers video:

Oh, and did you know Ben Smith was also a member of Journolist and that something he didn’t find at all, uhm, “footnote-y” was the possibility that Sarah Palin might own a tanning bed.

Priorities.

Except a funny thing happened between all that snark and footnotery. Breitbart TV Editor-In-Chief Larry O’Connor did the digging Journolisters fear (My God man, what if we find something!?!?!) and came up with an actual story:

In 2008 the Barack Obama for President campaign went into full denial mode accusing the McCain/Palin campaign of lying about a fundraiser held in domestic terrorist Bill Ayers’s home for Barack Obama’s Illinois State Senate campaign.

Watch this clip from October 15, 2008 where spokesman Robert Gibbs flat-out denies the fundraiser story to an inquiring Chris Matthews. Then watch Bill Ayers, in his own words, admit to the event himself.

But wait–there’s more! In October of 2008, in the heat of the campaign, NPR all but called Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin a liar for how she characterized the relationship between Ayers and Obama. Here’s a juicy NPR nugget: [emphasis mine]

To help Obama in the Democratic primary race to succeed her, Palmer organized a few informal meetings to introduce Obama to her supporters in the fall of 1995, including the gathering at Ayers’ house. It was not a fundraiser, as some reports have stated. And it was not the meeting that launched Obama’s political career, as other Obama critics have alleged.

Well, gee, NPR, the domestic terrorist disagrees.

And here’s the Huffington Post in October of 2008:

LIE: “Obama was feted at a fundraising event” at Ayers’ home.(“Hype: The Obama Effect”) TRUTH: Obama never had a fundraising event at Ayers’ home.

And here’s our friend Ben Smith again, assuring us in February of 2008 that Obama only “visited” with Ayers … Once. I do hope Michelle Obama sent him a thank you note in the form of a fat-free fruitcake or something.

Which begs a question the MSM dare not ask. In 2008, who passed on the information that the Ayers event wasn’t a fundraiser? Did the Obama campaign lie to NPR and the Huffington Post and Politico in 2008 (not that they weren’t told what they wanted to hear) or is Bill Ayers lying today?

But who cares? That was three whole freaking years ago. History. Water under the bridge. Bygones. After all, Weigel and Smith can’t be bothered with old stuff involving a sitting president possibly lying about his relationship with a domestic terrorist. They have 24 year-old rocks to write about, 15 year-old allegations of sexual harassment, and 42 year-old papers…

Stop whining electorate, our Media Overlords know what’s best for us.

P.S. Hey, Ben and Dave: I’m guessing any digging into this is out of the question. Yeah, you’re probably too busy going over Newt Gingrich’s 15 year-old divorce documents.

Big Government breaks the news that Bill Ayers hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama; well, this was broken by Ben Smith in 2007, but still.

I call it a “snark” because the word “lie” feels a little harsh during this holiday season. However, it’s just a fact that Big Government didn’t position the piece as “breaking news” and as far as I can tell it wasn’t even a featured story. But you have to admire a guy like Weigel who poses as an objective journalist and yet sees no news value whatsoever in new video of a notorious domestic terrorist speaking openly about his relationship with a sitting President of the United States.

But is it really that Weigel saw no news value in it or that he knows that Obama’s re-election could be in even more trouble were he to receive the kind of vetting Journolisters like Weigel did everything in their power to prevent in 2008?

Naturally, Weigel isn’t alone. Here’s Politico’s Ben Smith joining in on the wrist-flicking of the new Ayers video:

Oh, and did you know Ben Smith was also a member of Journolist and that something he didn’t find at all, uhm, “footnote-y” was the possibility that Sarah Palin might own a tanning bed.

Priorities.

Except a funny thing happened between all that snark and footnotery. Breitbart TV Editor-In-Chief Larry O’Connor did the digging Journolisters fear (My God man, what if we find something!?!?!) and came up with an actual story:

In 2008 the Barack Obama for President campaign went into full denial mode accusing the McCain/Palin campaign of lying about a fundraiser held in domestic terrorist Bill Ayers’s home for Barack Obama’s Illinois State Senate campaign.

Watch this clip from October 15, 2008 where spokesman Robert Gibbs flat-out denies the fundraiser story to an inquiring Chris Matthews. Then watch Bill Ayers, in his own words, admit to the event himself.

But wait–there’s more! In October of 2008, in the heat of the campaign, NPR all but called Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin a liar for how she characterized the relationship between Ayers and Obama. Here’s a juicy NPR nugget: [emphasis mine]

To help Obama in the Democratic primary race to succeed her, Palmer organized a few informal meetings to introduce Obama to her supporters in the fall of 1995, including the gathering at Ayers’ house. It was not a fundraiser, as some reports have stated. And it was not the meeting that launched Obama’s political career, as other Obama critics have alleged.

Well, gee, NPR, the domestic terrorist disagrees.

And here’s the Huffington Post in October of 2008:

LIE: “Obama was feted at a fundraising event” at Ayers’ home.(“Hype: The Obama Effect”) TRUTH: Obama never had a fundraising event at Ayers’ home.

And here’s our friend Ben Smith again, assuring us in February of 2008 that Obama only “visited” with Ayers … Once. I do hope Michelle Obama sent him a thank you note in the form of a fat-free fruitcake or something.

Which begs a question the MSM dare not ask. In 2008, who passed on the information that the Ayers event wasn’t a fundraiser? Did the Obama campaign lie to NPR and the Huffington Post and Politico in 2008 (not that they weren’t told what they wanted to hear) or is Bill Ayers lying today?

But who cares? That was three whole freaking years ago. History. Water under the bridge. Bygones. After all, Weigel and Smith can’t be bothered with old stuff involving a sitting president possibly lying about his relationship with a domestic terrorist. They have 24 year-old rocks to write about, 15 year-old allegations of sexual harassment, and 42 year-old papers…

Stop whining electorate, our Media Overlords know what’s best for us.

P.S. Hey, Ben and Dave: I’m guessing any digging into this is out of the question. Yeah, you’re probably too busy going over Newt Gingrich’s 15 year-old divorce documents.

NBC-owned television stations in cities across the nation just teamed up with a nonprofit “journalism” group funded by a billionaire husband and wife team who not only spent millions campaigning for President Obama but also topped donor lists to groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org.

The nonprofit, ProPublica, will contribute to the news operations of all NBC owned-and-operated stations, including those in such cities as Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, the network announced Monday.

The NBC affiliates will get early access to investigative reports from ProPublica, which describes itself as an “independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

Also included in the arrangement are local radio stations owned by Comcast, which purchased NBCUniversal earlier this year

The LA Times reported the arrangement comes as Comcast moves to fulfill its commitment to federal regulators to strengthen local, public-interest programming.

Bill Davis, chief executive of Pasadena-based KPCC-FM, said his radio station and KNBC-TV in Los Angeles will be able to expand the size of their audiences and the reach of their reporting.

“We can get to the kind of investigative and enterprise stories we wouldn’t be able to singularly,” Davis told the LA Times.

NBC stations will be given access to ProPublica’s newsroom to focus their own reporting on similar stories.

“We put the reporting at their fingertips and they can do terrific local stories with it,” said Richard Tofel, general manager for ProPublica.

“We get a greater and wider impact, which is ultimately our mission,” Tofel said of the new arrangement.

Obama campaigners; MoveOn, ACORN funders

On its website, Pro Publica describes itself as championing the values of the “weak” against the “strong.”

States the website: “Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with ‘moral force.’ We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.”

Controversial Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., a friend of Obama who was embroiled in a national race scandal in 2009, sits on the board of ProPublica.

ProPublica was founded with a $10 million yearly grant from Herbert and Marion Sandler, the former chief executives of the Golden West Financial Corporation, which was one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders and savings and loans.

Just before the financial crisis, the Sandlers in 2008 sold their business to the Wachovia Corporation for about $26 billion, a deal which valued their personal shares at about $2.4 billion.

The Sandlers are major donors to the Democratic Party and are top funders of ACORN, MoveOn.org, the American Civil Liberties Union and other far-leftist groups like Human Rights Watch.

The billionaire couple donate major sums to the Center for American Progress think tank, which is reportedly highly influential in helping to craft White House policy.

The center is directed by John Podesta, who served as co-chairman of Obama’s 2008 presidential transition team.

In 2008, the Sandlers were behind two controversial California Political Action Committees, Vote Hope and PowerPac.org, which spent about $5 million in pro-Obama ads in that state. The two groups were run by the Sandler’s son-in-law, Steve Phillips, the former president of the San Francisco School Board.

Journalistic integrity called into question

The journalistic integrity of the Sandler-backed ProPublica has been repeatedly called into question.

A report by the Capital Research Center concluded ProPublica “churns out little more than left-wing hit pieces about Sarah Palin and blames the U.S. government for giving out too little foreign aid.”

Slate reporter Jack Shafer raised questions about ProPublica’s ability to provide independent nonpartisan journalism in light of the nature of the Sandler’s political donations, which include “giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic Party campaigns.”

The watchdog website UndueInfluence.com slammed ProPublica’s claim of independence, stating the site is “as independent as a lapdog on a leash with allegiances sworn in advance to left-wing causes.”

AP distributes Soros-funded ‘journalism’

NBC’s deal with ProPublica is not the first time a major news outlet distributed reporting that is funded by questionable, partisan sources.

In 2009, KleinOnline first broke the story, that the Associated Press began delivering to its subscribing 1,500 American newspapers content, it has emerged, penned by groups with financing from philanthropist George Soros. The AP also distributes ProPublica pieces.

The AP announced in July 2009 it will allow its subscribers to publish free of charge work by four nonprofit groups, the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica.

The CPI is funded by Soros’ Open Society Institute.

CPI churns out regular partisan pieces. One widely debunked CPI study from 2008, covered extensively by the AP, claimed it found President Bush and top administration officials had issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq as “part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

Writing on FrontPageMag, Richard Poe, a writer for the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, concluded CPI and other Soros-funded so-called watchdogs “have a long history of coordination with Soros and his Shadow Party. They are beholden to Soros personally for his financial support. His influence often shows in their choice of targets.”

The AP itself has called the arrangement to distribute pieces from the Soros and Sandler-funded nonprofits an experiment that could be broadened to include other investigative nonprofits and to serve its nonmember clients, which include broadcast and Internet outlets.

“It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time, since part of our mission is to enable our members to share material with each other,” said Sue Cross, a senior vice president at the AP.

She added the development in 2006 of an Internet-based system for members to receive AP material made it easier to do this kind of sharing and to offer new products like the investigative service.

Anther "journalist" gets hired by the government. I don't know what to make of the now obvious common revolving door between news people and government work. It is exactly the same stuff us Wall Street Fed employee work or corporate lobby government relations. We had Tony Snow go from the media to press secretary, we have Dana Perrino go from press secretary to Fox punditry. We have senators, governors, comgresspeople getting talk shows and routnine guests on the networks.

We have talk show hosts and other media types going to the WH giving advice (zakaria). This is really weird folks. Do others notice this. This nation is in civil war. A propoganda war. This is a big part of it. I don't feel more educated or informed. I feel more manipulated and deceived. I feel like this is part of what is called the establishment. It is all about them, their pocketbooks, their agendas. Do others feel this way?:

****Jim Sciutto is ABC News' Senior Foreign correspondent, based in London. Since moving overseas in 2002, he has reported from more than 30 countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, including twelve assignments in Iraq. He contributes to all ABC News broacasts and platforms, including "World News with Diane Sawyer," "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."

Sciutto won Emmy awards in 2004 and 2005 for best story in a regularly scheduled newscast, covering northern Iraq for "Iraq: Where Things Stand." He was nominated for another Emmy in 2005 for outstanding coverage of a breaking news story for "Crisis in Beslan". He reported from Poland as part of ABC's Dupont Award-winning coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II.

Sciutto was the first television reporter to interview Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah and one of a handful of journalists allowed inside an Iranian nuclear plant in 2005. During the Iraq war, Sciutto was the only reporter embedded with the U.S. Special Forces.

Prior to his assignment overseas, he was based in Washington, reporting primarily from the Pentagon. Sciutto has also anchored "World News Now" and "World News This Morning." Before being assigned to Washington, he served as an ABC News correspondent in Chicago.

Prior to joining ABC News in 1998, Sciutto was Hong Kong correspondent for Asia Business News, an Asia-wide TV network owned by Dow Jones. For ABN, he covered Hong Kong's return to China in 1997, and reported on every country in the region, including assignments to China, Mongolia, Laos, Vietnam, Singapore and South Korea.

Sciutto's first job in television was as moderator and producer of "The Student Press," a weekly public affairs talk show for U.S. and Canadian college students broadcast on PBS.

Sciutto earned a degree in history from Yale University in 1992. He was a Fulbright Fellow in Hong Kong from 1993 to 1994.

In 2002, he was appointed Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale. He was also selected as a term member of the Council of Foreign Relations in June 2002.****

I could post this every week I guess, what a biased jerk he is for an alleged journalist. "I must interrupt you for accuracy!" and then he doesn't establish anything to be inaccurate. He baits Bachmann to call Newt's attitude toward her as sexism: "Is it Sexism?" (She declined.) Where the hell did that come from?? No one has made that charge!

I can't wait to see David Gregory ripping and interrupting a sitting President Obama "for accuracy" in the spirit of equal treatment. Or is "Sexism" or racism why the President will be treated with honor and dignity while his nonsense explanations will face only the lightest scrutiny if he ever appears on a show like that.------------Another network CBS, from 'The Atlantic' a piece ripping 60 Minutes for its softball interview of President Obama

The hour-long conversation was a typical example of a broadcast journalist failing to hold a powerful politician accountable

In an interview posted by 60 Minutes on Sunday, President Obama spends an hour answering questions posed by Steve Kroft, a 23-year veteran of the CBS television program who has won numerous broadcast journalism awards and enjoys unusual access to the president: earlier this year, he conducted the only interview with Obama on the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and back in 2008 he scored the first post-election interview with Barack and Michelle Obama.

Were I an adviser to President Obama, I'd urge him to give his next exclusive to Kroft too, for there is a superficial toughness to his interviews. "There are people in your own party who think that you were outmaneuvered. That you were stared down by John Boehner and Grover Norquist and capitulated," Kroft says at one point. Later he notes that "You say that you rallied the country, but these poll numbers show otherwise. They show that 75 percent thinks the country's on the wrong track." As a political operative, these are exactly the sorts of questions I'd want the struggling politician for whom I worked to get, because it appears that he has volunteered to sit down with a tough interviewer, but actually he is being given an opportunity to offer free-ranging explanations for something that no one can deny: lots of people in America are unhappy with him.

As a journalist at a non-broadcast outlet, I am frustrated by interviews like this one. Few journalists (and zero non-journalist citizens) are afforded an opportunity to spend an hour asking anything of the president, and fewer still who enjoy a mass audience as big as 60 Minutes, which bills its broadcasts as "hard-hitting." It is therefore disheartening each time the opportunity is squandered with broad, superficial, softball questions:

KROFT: You definitely have some impressive accomplishments.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you, Steve.

KROFT: No, you do. And more than a lot of presidents who manage to get reelected. My question is, is it enough? Why do you think you deserve to be reelected?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think under some extraordinary circumstances, we not only saved the country from a potential disaster -- not only did we manage our national security at a time where there were severe threats and two wars going on, in a way that has made America stronger and more respected and put us in a better strategic position around the world and almost decimated our number one enemy, which is al Qaeda -- but what I've also been able to do is to, in very practical ways, put in place a series of steps that will allow middle-class families and those trying to get in the middle class to take back some of what they've lost over the last couple of years. Now, we're not there yet, but what I can say unequivocally is that everything I've done, every single day, and everything I will do as long as I'm in this office is designed to make sure that every kid in America has the same opportunities that I had.

Given a fleeting hour with a president who is avowedly seeking re-election, how can a journalist possibly justify that exchange? Of course he's going to say yes, he deserves to be reelected, and then repeat his familiar messaging. In the course of the next year, as President Obama stumps all over the nation and otherwise campaigns for re-election, there is zero chance that the American public will be deprived of his argument for why he deserves another term.

It would be forgivable if that question were surrounded by better ones. But much of the interview is flawed in similar ways.

Another example:

KROFT: One of the things that surprised me the most about this poll is that 42%, when asked who your policies favor the most, 42% said Wall Street. Only 35% said average Americans. My suspicion is some of that may have to do with the fact that there's not been any prosecutions, criminal prosecutions, of people on Wall Street. And that the civil charges that have been brought have often resulted in what many people think have been slap on the wrists, fines. "Cost of doing business," I think you called it in the Kansas speech. Are you disappointed by that?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think you're absolutely right in your interpretation...

This is embarrassing. Why is Kroft volunteering an oversimplified explanation for American anger at Wall Street? Why does he pose the question as though Obama's feelings (whether he is disappointed or not) is relevant? More importantly, why does he fail to challenge the president with specific questions grounded in facts and policy realities rather than public perception?

Here's a journalist (ostensibly) working on behalf of a polity that has seen populist movements in the streets on the left and right, largely because they believe that there is an unseemly relationship between the federal government and Wall Street. Kroft could've asked whether Obama thought it was problematic for Peter Orszag to take a job at Citigroup; he could've asked whether it's true that Joe Biden called Jon Corzine at the height of the financial crisis to ask what the Obama Administration should do upon taking office; he could've asked about recent revelations that the Fed secretly funneled trillions to banks and failed to tell Congress about it. When did Obama know? Should anything be done about it? Kroft could've pressed Obama about why he hasn't pushed to end the "too big to fail" status quo that could conceivably lead to another Wall Street bailout. Any decent financial journalist could come up with dozens of other questions.

An interviewer determined to challenge a sitting president, as every interviewer of every president should do, could've asked what Obama thinks about the fact that his drone strikes in Pakistan are destabilizing a nuclear power and killing innocent children; or whether Solyndra got special treatment because of its insider connections; or what he thinks about the Fast and Furious scandal and what Eric Holder knew about it. Kroft could've challenged Obama to explain why he decided to proceed with military action in Libya even though it violated the War Powers Resolution, or asked him about the controversy surrounding federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, or echoed the concerns that progressives have with his immigration policies.

But nope. Kroft asked none of those questions; nor did he press Obama about his views on indefinitely detaining American citizens; nor did he ask about the killing without due process of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American; nor did he ask about the controversy surrounding whether the morning-after pill should be available over-the-counter for people of all ages or not; nor did he ask about the private security contractors that America will pay to stay in Iraq after we leave; nor about the state secrets privilege; nor about aggressively prosecuting whistleblowers; nor about many other issues of concern to liberals, conservatives, and libertarians, all of whom have earnest complaints.

Instead we got hard hitting exchanges like this one:

KROFT: I'm sure your poll numbers will probably automatically go up as soon as there is a Republican candidate in the race. I mean, that's normal. I mean, you're being judged now on your performance.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, no, no. I'm being judged against the ideal. And, you know, [Vice President] Joe Biden has a good expression. He says, "Don't judge me against the Almighty, judge me against the alternative."

Other gems:

"Have you given up on the Republicans? Have you stopped reaching out to them? Are you just out there now trying to get your message across?"

"What do you make of this surge by former Speaker Gingrich?"

"Tell me, what do you consider your major accomplishments?"

What this interview represents -- like so many broadcast news interviews with sitting politicians and high level bureaucrats -- is the charade of asking tough questions to hold the president accountable. And the utter failure to ask any actually tough questions, to unearth any new facts of significance, to force any sort of reckoning before the television cameras on a matter of importance. If I were advising Obama, I'd make sure that Kroft got the next exclusive interview too.

I share your being peeved at Gregory. He is such a partisan hack and frankly a scumbag.

I don't know for the life of me why Republicans keep going onto his show. Why give him the opportunity and why give him legitimacy at all? He is not legitimate and his show stinks anyway. It is no different than propaganda coming out of MSNBC.

Do a lot of independents watch him?

Why are the repubs going on his show? Who needs his crap?

That said Bachman handled herself well for the five minutes I could stand watching Gregory continuously try and bait her. It is obvious what he does.

The *establishment guy*, Sharpton may take over the time slot for Uygur:

"too establishment""challenge power"

****Al Sharpton Close to Anchor Deal at MSNBC

Reuters Jul 21, 2011 Say hello to Al Sharpton and goodbye to Cenk Uygur for MSNBC's 6 p.m. time slot. According to The New York Times's Brian Stelter, a deal is "imminent" to have the civil rights firebrand anchor his own show, following Uygur's six-month tryout. Stelter says the deal comes as "MSNBC and other news channels have been criticized for a paucity of minority hosts in prominent time slots." Uygur was offered a contract to host his own weekend show but declined saying to viewers on his web show The Young Turks that MSNBC was too "establishment." He explained, “I didn’t want to work in a place that wouldn’t let me do my kind of show, that wasn’t interested in my kind of show, that didn’t want to challenge power."

In the Times article Uygur says that in April MSNBC president Phil Griffin “called me into his office and said that he’d been talking to people in Washington, and that they did not like my tone.” According to Uygur, Griffin didn't like him criticizing President Obama so extensively. On his web show, he offered the words of one of his fans to explain his feelings: “Watching Cenk on The Young Turks is like watching a tiger in the wild; watching him on MSNBC is like watching a tiger in a cage.” Nice imagery.****

The *establishment guy*, Sharpton may take over the time slot for Uygur:

"too establishment""challenge power"

****Al Sharpton Close to Anchor Deal at MSNBC

Reuters Jul 21, 2011 Say hello to Al Sharpton and goodbye to Cenk Uygur for MSNBC's 6 p.m. time slot. According to The New York Times's Brian Stelter, a deal is "imminent" to have the civil rights firebrand anchor his own show, following Uygur's six-month tryout. Stelter says the deal comes as "MSNBC and other news channels have been criticized for a paucity of minority hosts in prominent time slots." Uygur was offered a contract to host his own weekend show but declined saying to viewers on his web show The Young Turks that MSNBC was too "establishment." He explained, “I didn’t want to work in a place that wouldn’t let me do my kind of show, that wasn’t interested in my kind of show, that didn’t want to challenge power."

In the Times article Uygur says that in April MSNBC president Phil Griffin “called me into his office and said that he’d been talking to people in Washington, and that they did not like my tone.” According to Uygur, Griffin didn't like him criticizing President Obama so extensively. On his web show, he offered the words of one of his fans to explain his feelings: “Watching Cenk on The Young Turks is like watching a tiger in the wild; watching him on MSNBC is like watching a tiger in a cage.” Nice imagery.****

A funny thing happened on the way to the New Hampshire primary: ABC moderator George Stephanopoulos embarrassed himself on national television with questions plainly intended to embarrass the Republican candidates. Therein lies a lesson.

On Saturday night, Mr. Stephanopoulos stepped outside the role of honest interlocutor when he pursued Mitt Romney with the issue on nobody's lips or legislative agenda: whether states have the right to ban contraception. Likewise, fellow moderator Diane Sawyer, who asked Republicans what they would say, "sitting in their living rooms," to a gay couple.

As the audience appreciated—they booed after Mr. Stephanopolous's sixth follow-up—these questions were designed less to illuminate than to paint Republicans as people who hate gays and are so crazy they might just ban contraception if elected.

For conservatives, this is nothing new. Conservatives are used to a world where the referees often seem to be playing for the other team. In this case, however, the responses from the candidates were revealing.

Rick Santorum essentially answered directly, opposing the Supreme Court's definition of privacy and defending traditional marriage. On the question about gays, Newt Gingrich called marriage between a man and a woman a defining part of our civilization. He then turned the question back on Ms. Sawyer, wondering why the press never asks about how same-sex marriage is driving the Catholic Church out of the adoption business. As for state bans on contraception, Mr. Romney noted that no state was in fact proposing to do so, "and asking me whether they could do it or not is kind of a silly thing."

If this were an academic exercise, Mr. Santorum might score highest. Even those who disagree with him would concede that his answers were on point. He knows what he believes and why, and he does not run away when asked to defend the hard position.

Mr. Gingrich's answer showed why he remains popular among many Republican quarters despite his considerable baggage. Unlike those who strike conservative voters as too polite or deferential to lordly media figures, Mr. Gingrich calls bias by its name. And he was right to point out that there are serious consequences (such as adoption) to the legalization of same-sex marriage that the news media mostly choose to ignore.

Nevertheless, Mr. Romney trumped. He didn't shy away from the substance, confirming that he favors repeal of Roe v. Wade and explaining the constitutional way to oppose court decisions when you believe one has been wrongly decided. But when he dismissed the whole line of questioning as "silly," he made Mr. Stephanopoulos look ridiculous.

That's something to remember going forward. Yes, it's unfair that Democratic candidates such as President Obama can count on the media to amplify their biases against Republicans.

Bias, however, is a fact of American political life. Merely complaining about it doesn't move the ball.

No one appreciated this more than Ronald Reagan. Today we remember the Gipper as a popular and beloved American figure. That's not the way he was presented to the American public when he was running against Jimmy Carter in 1980. Back then, Mr. Reagan was cast as a divisive, Neanderthal warmonger itching to push the nuclear button.

President Carter played to this image. A "MacNeil/Lehrer Report" after the single presidential debate that year noted that Mr. Carter had used the word "dangerous" six times. Another observer added that the president had also called Reagan "heartless," "insensitive," "misleading," "disturbing" and "irresponsible."

Mr. Reagan didn't let it get to him. When Mr. Carter implied Mr. Reagan was against Medicare because he opposed all efforts to help provide decent health care for American citizens, Mr. Reagan smiled and shook his head. Then he issued four devastating words that have now entered the political lexicon: "There you go again."

There's a good lesson here. Whatever else we know about 2012, we know we will have many more Stephanopoulos moments ahead. Though it might be more satisfying to thunder against the injustice, there are other, possibly more effective ways to expose the bias.

On the social issues especially, the media narrative is that Republicans are obsessed. The truth is that at a time when millions of Americans can't find work, when our Middle East policy is in turmoil, when the future of Mr. Obama's signature legislative achievement—health care—is in question, every Republican in the running is itching for the opportunity to talk about how he would address these things.

In sharp contrast, it was Mr. Stephanopoulos and Ms. Sawyer who showed themselves consumed with nonexistent initiatives on contraception and what you might say to gay friends who are sitting in your living room. Saturday night on ABC, we saw this bias in its full, condescending form.

We also saw something less well appreciated: that a Republican candidate can turn it to his advantage.

• The New York Times cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a credible source, while continuing its policy of never mentioning that CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and operates as a Hamas support group.• NYT also suppressed the facts that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, which resulted in the FBI cutting off all formal contact with the group and that an FBI official has described CAIR as a "front for Hamas."• NYT primarily relies on two sources for comments: Zead Ramadan of CAIR-NY, and Faiza Patel, of the Brennan Center of Justice, but which the Times deliberately fails to mention that both of whom represent organizations that have repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups or have blamed the FBI for fabricating Islamic terror plots.• An IPT investigator videotaped Ramadan at a press event refusing to answer her questions as to whether Hamas is a terrorist organization.• The Times cites CAIR's Zead Ramadan as a legitimate source of criticism of the film but fails to report that Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization led by noted anti-Semite George Galloway, that supports Hamas financially and politically, in 2010.• Patel of the Brennan Center has long been a critic of law enforcement's attempts to counter terrorism, even denouncing the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.• The Times failed to report that their only two sources for their story--CAIR and the Brennan Center, who are made to seem independent and impartial are actual apologists for Islamic terrorist groups. In fact, the Times failed to report that the Brennan Center received CAIR's "Safe While Free" Award in 2009.• The Times failed to report one actual flaw in the film but based its demonization of the film based largely on emails it did not disclose that it received from CAIR, a Hamas front groupIn a front-page story on Tuesday discussing the documentary film, "The Third Jihad," and its use by the NYPD in training, The New York Times once again collaborates with radical Islamists to help shape the news. The article revealed the newspaper's bias, from the vaguely threatening headline – "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims" - and by relying on those who are not simply opposed to the film, but have previously demonstrated their support of radical Islamists by both word and by association with similarly aligned groups.The Times' article, written by Michael Powell, primarily relies on the opinions of Zead Ramadan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' New York chapter (CAIR-NY) and Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center, both of whom aver that the NYPD acted questionably by showing city police the film, to present the case. Ramadan asserts that the movie "defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for." Patel stated that, "The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us."The problem with Ramadan and Patel, left unsaid by the newspaper, is found in their words and associations. As has been its longstanding policy, the Times never mentions that CAIR is a Hamas support group, created by the Muslim Brotherhood to present and promote its interests. (Of course, even if one day the Times did acknowledge that, it would still have to break another self-imposed taboo of having never once called Hamas a terrorist organization.)In contrast to the newspaper, the film does reveal how CAIR was created shortly after a secret 1993 meeting in Philadelphia involving members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. The goal was for CAIR to operate as a pro-Hamas lobbying group, without being publicly linked to Hamas.The FBI later cited that evidence, which was used to help name CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, in explaining why it cut off formal communication with CAIR. "Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers wrote in April 2009, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."But CAIR refused to address the documentary's substance. Instead, the group issued a press release quoting Ramadan comparing it to the Nazi-era film "Triumph of the Will" and the silent movie "Birth of a Nation." Ramadan voiced his concerns to NYPD chief Raymond Kelly, who said he would "take care of it" and department spokesman Browne denounced the film as "wacky."All of this was left out of the article on Tuesday, which also failed to inform readers about the questionable backgrounds of the movie's critics. The story said nothing about the fact that in 2010 Ramadan contributed $1,000 to Viva Palestina, an organization founded by the notorious anti-Semite George Galloway, and which supports Hamas financially and politically, or that CAIR-NY in 2008 issued a statement calling for the release of Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to contribute funds to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist group.The Investigative Project on Terrorism attended a Dec. 15, 2011 press conference held by a group calling itself the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and asked if he considered Hamas a terrorist organization. Ramadan was asked point-blank: "Do you consider Hamas a terrorist organization?"

[click above to view the video or click here to see the video and a full transcript]Ramadan proceeded to tap-dance around the question. He replied by stating that, "Islam, myself, and I think all people of conscience, are opposed to all terrorism in all of its forms against all people of the world. Anyone who is innocent that is killed, it's not the way of the Islamic people or people who stand for liberty and justice. Thank you very much."Our investigator pressed forward, asking Ramadan about Hamas specifically. Ramadan refused to answer, stating that his concern was "the American Bill of Rights situation that we now have."Ramadan then proceeded to attack the questioner. "You want to take our foreign policy issue and make it the number one issue in the world. No. The issue we have right here is the problem we have in America, and we're eroding," he said.Ramadan added that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had gone to Myanmar to talk about the erosion of human rights and appeared to be "bringing that back here" and "showing how to erode our civil rights here."Again, our investigator noted that Ramadan was evading the question about Hamas."He already answered," moderator Imam Talib Abdur Rashid shot back. "You just didn't get the answer you wanted."Over and over, CAIR spends a lot of effort urging Muslim Americans not to cooperate with law enforcement. Speaking at CAIR-NY's "Annual Banquet and Leadership Conference" in April 2011, board member Lamis Deek implored her audience not to speak to the FBI, NYPD or other law enforcement agencies."It's very important to not speak to law enforcement of any type, not just FBI agents," she said. "We're talking about the New York Police Department, we're talking about tax agents, we're talking about everybody."Deek said that if the FBI shows up claiming it has a warrant for someone's arrest, they need to ask to see the warrant because "Mossad" agents had been "go[ing] around pretending to be FBI." She warned that "they" (it was unclear whether she was referring to the Mossad, the FBI, or both) will threaten to "seriously blackmail" people.Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center - which is sufficiently in accord with CAIR that in 2009 it received CAIR's 'Safe While Free' Award - offers complementary positions. At a Nov. 17 forum in Washington entitled "Islamist Radicalization, Myth or Reality," Patel appeared to suggest that any effort by law enforcement to look for signs of radicalism in the Muslim community was doomed to failure. "You can't expect the community to behave as your partner if at the same time you're subjecting them to intense surveillance and monitoring," she said.And if Muslims were in denial about the existence of radical Islamist ideologies in their communities, perhaps law enforcement should defer to them, Patel added: "If the community doesn't believe that radicalization or extremism or extremist views or extremist ideologies is (sic) a problem in their own community, then you should also understand that maybe they know what they're talking about, and not be spending police resources this way."In a Huffington Post op-ed, Patel denounced the NYPD's operation that resulted in the arrest of accused lone-wolf jihadist Jose Pimentel, charged with plotting to bomb U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.It should not come as a surprise that The New York Times left all of this critical information out of Tuesday's article, given the paper's long history of covering for CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations. As we have noted before, Times reporters like Andrea Elliott and columnists like Nicholas Kristof have published stories glossing over the radical background of Salafist cleric Yasir Qadhi, dean of academic affairs at the Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute, and whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood's radical record and hostility towards Israel.Last December, after Kristof penned a column in which he claimed that Brotherhood officials in Egypt had been behaving responsibly, Eric Trager of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy described Kristof as "credulous" about the Brotherhood. After interviewing some of the organization's members who had just been elected to Parliament, Trager wrote in the New Republic that, "Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West."Nonetheless, the NYPD, apparently responding to pressure from the media and perhaps from politicians, including Mayor Bloomberg, who denounced the film, stopped showing the documentary.Somebody [at the NYPD] exercised some terrible judgment," Bloomberg said Tuesday. "As soon as they found out about it, they stopped it." The mayor gave no indication that he had actually seen the film.Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and narrator of the film, took exception to Bloomberg's comments. "I could not disagree more," he said. "The fact that Bloomberg made such a comment without providing any evidence that the film was in error indicates that the mayor's comment was "careless," Jasser said.Bloomberg's ignorance should not be surprising given his administration's friendly relationship with CAIR-NY. In May 2009, for example, the mayor's education policy advisor, Fatima Ashraf, hosted the Islamist group's annual banquet and fundraiser, where she gushed praise for CAIR-NY. Ashraf called it "a shining star among Muslim organizations in the country," adding that "their sincerity and motivation" and "genuine desire to make positive change for Muslims is what really makes them stand out."In similar fashion, Bloomberg's uninformed position is mirrored by the Times article, which does not provide any examples, or specific information of any kind, to back up criticism of the film.The article hints in rather foreboding fashion that the film is an effort to scare people about the threat posed by radical Islam: "Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying near the White House."Even in this brief description of the film, The New York Times got it wrong. According to Clarion Films, which produced the documentary, the photograph of the White House with an Islamic flag on top was taken from Islamist sources, not altered by the filmmakers.

I carry deep seated anger toward our own local Star and Sickle and it surfaces its ugly head when I read falsehoods put out by the government and repeated without scrutiny by other sycophant, agenda driven press.

Sorry for the outburst but there weren't 200k net real jobs created, there were 200k statistically adjusted jobs listed on bureaucratic paper at taxpayer expense. Everyone else is doing it too is not a defense; the LA Times was the one quoted. My wrath is aimed at them not you, but curious, JDN, did you really not know the rest of the story - posted below?

The pattern I see them use is to report a news story falsely to create a different story such as that the economy is slowly getting a little better when it isn't and then poll on that story and manufacture a new news story based on their own poll saying that the majority or some other large number think the economy is getting a little better - in this case, or the rich have too much as another example. Like clockwork I will show you the second half of that soon.

The LA Times is not alone in it, but if they want to deceive for a living or limit their market for biased, sloppy agenda driven reporting to only half the market then I will enjoy my liberty in pointing out their own eroding market and market share.

You may be right in your 10 year figure but the WSJ did not use to be No.1 and the LA Times while staking out a slant similar to MSNBC is moving the other direction.

I resent having to go to outside of mainstream sources to find truth, accuracy or critical thinking. I don't mind the trouble personally, it was pretty easy to find the rest of the BLS data, but am saddened and harmed by the fact that I share a Republic with people who are largely informed with a storyline from what Crafty so aptly calls the Pravdas.

The real Pravda.Ru probably digs deeper into its reporting than those we accuse here of being state run presses.

Beneath the headlines and not in the LA Times, not even worthy of footnoting while repeating government manufactured drivel is how they got to that number: "Between December 2011 and January 2012, the number of Americans "not in the labor force" increased by 1.2 million." bls.gov That would be another steep drop below what is shown in this chart. See if this chart shows the employment situation improving in the 6 years since Sen Barack Obama and the Democrats took over congress first and then the executive branch:Unreported in the LA Times is a) any information from the chart and b) any analysis as to why the sharpest downward turn occurred.

If they will lie in words and lie by omission, they can take back a little criticism. "We...suffer from a deplorable lack of curiosity' is what Capt von Trapp said back to the Nazis when everyone already knew what the other was doing and didn't need to ask.

I happen to like the LA Times; in general it does a good job. I posted a few other editorials from today's paper a moment ago; you may even agree with some.

That said, I have friends at the LA Times; they deplore the massive lay offs and lack of attention to detail. They often simply pass headlines along. That's too bad.I prefer, as you Doug have pointed out, careful analysis. Frankly, whether I agree or not is not the point; hopefully I learn something either way. But I learnlittle from sound bites.

When I ran for US Congress for the 36th District of CA, the combined vote of the Libertarian Party (me) Green Party, and Peace & Freedom Party was 10%, well more than the margin between the Dem (Jane Harman) and Rec (Joan Milke Flores) yet Pravda on the Beach refused to report our votes, instead showing the Dem and Rep votes as constituting 100% of the vote. Oh, and btw, POTB refused to mention us in its coverage of the debates during the race, even though both the Green candidate and I were very well received.

When I ran for US Congress for the 36th District of CA, the combined vote of the Libertarian Party (me) Green Party, and Peace & Freedom Party was 10%, well more than the margin between the Dem (Jane Harman) and Rec (Joan Milke Flores) yet Pravda on the Beach refused to report our votes, instead showing the Dem and Rep votes as constituting 100% of the vote. Oh, and btw, POTB refused to mention us in its coverage of the debates during the race, even though both the Green candidate and I were very well received.

To not list at all what they consider to be minor candidates is an editorial choice - a pretty bad one if those votes were greater than the margin of victory. To take two scores that total 90% of the vote and say it was 100% is dishonest. Shame on them.

Exactly so. I would add that it was 1992, the year of Ross Perot's candidacy and third party was in the air. The Daily Breeze, a not insubstantial local paper that was and is part of the Copley news chain, gave even space to all candidates (except for P&F who did not bother) for the question of the week on the bottom half of page three for eight weeks and even coverage in all the debates. I got plenty of good commentary and the Reps asked me to run for them the next time.

Early returns had shown Flores maintaining a slim lead. But by midnight, the difference had dwindled to a near-tie and soon became a virtual Harman landslide. The final tally left Harman with 48.8% of the vote, Flores with 41.7%, and three minor party candidates splitting 9.5% among themselves.

Doug, I couldn't find the first page election summary, but as you implied, it is a "summary" on the first page. Often, they only list the top two contestants if together they have an overwhelming percentage (90%+ in this case) of the vote. They will list more candidates if it's a close 3 or 4 way race. I don't think it's any intentional disrespect to the other contestants - it's merely a matter of front page summary space available.

IMHO the article I posted, printed in The LA Times on November 5, 1992, seems like a fair and accurate, albeit brief, summary of the election results.

Then I would head to the microfilm at the library before publishing a story implying that our host who had the rest of the facts correct was wrong. If LAT was wrong in cover, then there is quite a difference between proving them right and proving they knew better. We will see...------------The NY Times has quite a history of putting out truth much later is very small print buried in a section called corrections that really could be its own major publication. Perhaps a mis-spelling should go in corrections, but correcting falsehoods should be in a size and location equal or greater to the original, unless they are content to leave a false impression in the minds of millions who read the original story.------------In a different story of irresponsible reporting, our paper reported a tragic fire a few years ago killing multiple young college students in private housing at the university. For the first few days the Red Star ran with every story they dig up to insinuate that the landlord must have had some negligence that led to the fire. He was caught once doing his own gas piping, OMG! (Safe install of gas pipe is not rocket science for an experienced multiple building owner.)

But it turned out in investigation that the victims own friends killed their roommates through drunken passing out with cigarettes burning near flammables, but by then the story was old news and the real story was buried deep if covered at all, leaving roughly 99% of the readers with the false impression, as intended. To inform is not their mission. To fit the story into their agenda and to sell newspapers - that is what matters.--------------Back to Crafty's story: In MN, it was the previous election where the minor party candidate for Senate rose to 15% of the vote that opened the door for one wrestler without a real party to win the Governor's office in a 3-way race the next time around.

Not covering the minor candidates leads to more of the same while polls keep showing people dissatisfied are with the choices.

I apologize if I have offended you; that was surely NOT my intent. I have the highest respect for you and in particular admire the fact that you ran for office rather than like most of us who are merely armchair critics.

I was merely defending (we often see give and take on this forum) the LA Times. IMHO I think overall it is an excellent newspaper, less than before, but given the economic times of publishing companies, stilla very good newspaper.

Beck gone now Napolitano. Ratings are down I guess. Truthfully it seems like these shows will only appeal to certains groups and go only so far. I say with disappointment that the strict conservative message is not going to get us the independents. Just won't happen. It is just too late, like it or not.

Proof in point, the country's "greatest generation" is now the country's biggest "entitlement generation" - by FAR. Medicare and SS alone will bankrupt us while the politicians and the few who control the world economy continue their shell game.

During the McGovern-Mondale era, the Democrats were exactly where the Republicans are now: the party had been taken over by its most extreme liberal faction, and it had lost touch with the core concerns of the middle class….Those terrible losses in 1972 and, especially, in 1984 were the Democrats’ shock therapy.

What happened in the interim? In effect, moderate Democrats wrested the party back from its most liberal wing….“We had become a party that had stopped worrying about people who were working and only focused on people who weren’t working,” [Al] From told me. “The party didn’t understand how big a concern crime was. It had stopped talking about opportunity and growth.”

Just for fun, I looked up the Times editorials in 1972 and 1984 in which the paper endorsed George McGovern and Walter Mondale, respectively. Needless to say, those editorials contain no trace of any acknowledgement that the Democrats were in the grip of the party’s far-left wing, or that either candidate had “stopped talking about opportunity and growth,” had “lost touch with the core concerns of the middle class,” or was “focused on people who weren’t working.”

On the contrary. Here is what the Times had to say about McGovern back in 1972:

The New York Times urges the election of George McGovern for President of the United States. We believe that Senator McGovern’s approach to public questions, his humanitarian philosophy and humane scale of values, his courage and forthrightness can offer a new kind of leadership in American political life. …

A McGovern administration, the Times believes, would reverse the unmistakable drift in Washington away from government of, by and for the people. …

On virtually every major issue from the war to taxes, from education to environment, from civil liberties to national defense, Mr. McGovern…seems to us to be moving with the right priorities, with faith in the common man, and within the democratic framework.

Which is to say that McGovern was just about as left-wing as the Times editorial board. This is what the Times had to say about Walter Mondale when it endorsed him in 1984:

[Mondale's] election would mean franker, fairer decisions on the hard economic choices that the President has concealed during the campaign. Mr. Mondale would offer an enlightened and humane conception of what Government should, and should not, do. Most of all, he would bring to the White House the will to control nuclear weapons. …

Walter Mondale believes in a sturdy defense. He also stands in the middle of the bipartisan community that long ago learned to abandon the fruitless quest for nuclear superiority. In this election, he represents all those Republicans and Democrats determined to tame the nuclear threat.

Lawyer Mondale offers pragmatic skill at making the best of reality. … Walter Mondale has all the dramatic flair of a trigonometry teacher. His Nordic upbringing makes it hard for him to brag. The first debate may have been the high point of his political personality. But there’s power in his plainness.

Precisely by not dramatizing issues, he has consistently produced consensus and agreement, as a Senator and as Jimmy Carter’s Vice President.

In the Times’s view at the time, Mondale was trudging stolidly down the middle of the road. Meanwhile, it is interesting to see that the paper’s current obsessions were just as prominent 28 years ago:

Who is likely to do better in arms negotiations in the next term, Walter Mondale or the President who tickles the religious right by reviling the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire?

To Henry Steele Commager, the historian, the 1983 speech in which Mr. Reagan described the Russians in that way was “the worst Presidential speech in American history, and I’ve read them all” – not because it was undiplomatic but because “No other Presidential speech has ever so flagrantly allied the government with religion. There was a gross appeal to religious prejudice.”

Religious prejudice? What a bizarre way of looking at the Cold War! Of course, it goes without saying that the Times failed either to foresee or to wish for the downfall of the Evil Empire.

One final digression before returning to the main point: the 1984 edition of the Times should be applauded for its concern about deficit spending:

Unless most economists are crazy, the country can’t keep borrowing $200 billion a year.

Give the paper its due; it was right. Deficit spending of $200 billion a year couldn’t continue. The Democrats had to increase the deficit to over $1 trillion to cover their extravagant spending habit.

The Times, of course, has no credibility at all, but it is nice to see that after more than a quarter century, it is willing to publish a column by its own reporter that admits the truth about the inept candidates that it backed out of partisan fervor and ideological extremism.

A discussion of note went by on a different thread about copyrights while I was gone. There is a tradeoff between protecting content and getting the word out so that there will be awareness and demand for content. A couple of my own thoughts to add.

Using the Wall Street Journal as an example:

a) There is an expectation when you subscribe that you will share content with a small or reasonable amount of people such as their eagerness to have it in the waiting room of the dental office - or the public library. Somewhere I read in the online world that is sharing with 4 people, but in the example above such as at the public library all day that is certainly more. There is no indication that people come here for the purpose of getting around that subscription cost they otherwise have paid themnselves. If anything the random promotion and discussion of stories and columns would make people more likely to subscribe.

b) Their own promotional strategy is to give away a mixture of free and protected content to draw attention, praise and subscriptions. Often times my own awareness of a good column comes from their own efforts to submit material to other best of the web sites like Real Clear Politics for widespread dissemination.

c) I post some things because they are expressing my own viewpoint, but give credit to the source as a matter of honesty.

e) The content is intentionally mixed to get non-subscribers lured part way in, but as you read signed in as a subscriber there is no indication provided as to was is or is not protected. Note that this discussion started as a reader was pulled part way in requesting more.

f) My own awareness of the WSJ editorial page began after my economics professor passed photocopies around of his own contributions. My copy got lost or damaged. I replaced it at the library and found out that he was only being published for his opposing view and that the lead editorials made far more sense. While the liberal universities were pushing Keynesian economics as the only way to proceed in macroeconomics, the WSJ lead editorial was writing that "Keynes is Dead" in the late 1970s with simultaneously exploding inflation and unemployment. Former editor Robert Bartley was a genius at putting a team together and current editorial page editor, Green Bay Wisc. native Paul Gigot is one of the most insightful people in Washington IMHO.

g) Besides reading and subscribing, I have contributed material to the editorial page that they had no hesitation in using. They credited me but forward no payment. Other times it appears that they have been reading the forum before writing - without credit. I don't think they want to risk having a cease and desist order being mutual!

I don't know the solution, but the WSJ's Subscriber Agreement (similar to most other publications) is quite clear....

Personally, I don't see the harm, if anything interesting articles posted make me want to subscribe to the WSJ (I don't because I read it at various venues) but maybe that is the wrong attitude.

___WSJ Agreement

b. The text, graphics, images, video, metadata, design, organization, compilation, look and feel, advertising and all other protectable intellectual property (the "Content") available through the Services are our property or the property of our advertisers and licensors and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Unless you have our written consent, you may not sell, publish, distribute, retransmit or otherwise provide access to the Content received through the Services to anyone, including, if applicable, your fellow students or employees, with the following exceptions:

(i) You may occasionally distribute a copy of an article, or a portion of an article, from a Service in non-electronic form to a few individuals without charge, provided you include all copyright and other proprietary rights notices in the same form in which the notices appear in the Service, original source attribution, and the phrase "Used with permission from The Wall Street Journal Online" or "Used with permission from Barron's Online", as appropriate. Please consult the Dow Jones Reprints web site if you need to distribute an article from a Service to a larger number of individuals, on a regular basis or in any other manner not expressly permitted by this Agreement.